Pavilion renovations | Friends of Spencer Park

For a number of years, the Friends of Spencer Park have been working on plans to refurbish the Edwardian pavilion in the centre of Spencer Park. The Friends group signed a lease to take over the building from Coventry City Council in 2024, and sufficient funds were raised by the spring of 2025 to start work on the renovations.

Phase 1 of the renovations is now complete, meaning that the building has been made sound and the interior has been repurposed as a café and community hub. Further work is planned for the future, including roof renovations, a rainwater catchment system, decoration of the toilets, and restoration of the pavilion’s clock. A new round of funding will start in Spring 2026.

For details about the renovations, including photos of the progress so far, please scroll down this page further.

For a longer read, please take a look at Peter Elias’ blog, Pulling together: the story of a community project, which examines the history of the pavilion, the work of the Friends of Spencer Park, and gives an insight into the planning, fundraising and restoration challenges during the project. (Peter is the project lead and Chair of the pavilion subcommittee.)

Our plans for the pavilion

The plan to open up the interior of the building to create a large community space, a modern café and new toilets has now been completed. The Spencer Park Community Café will be open for business on 14 February 2026.

It is hoped that the interior space will also be used to house exhibitions, showcasing local heritage projects and the work of artists from the local area.

The plan is to use the space as a community café in the daytime, run by volunteers, but will be available for children’s parties and community groups in the evenings.

Artists’ impression of the café interior on the initial plans

As part of the planning and design process, many documents were produced including:

A report on the two surveys we conducted
An independent feasibility study
The business plan for the café
Scope of works
Drawings
– Existing plan view
– Proposed plan view
– Elevation of main entrance

Our funding partners

Funding was obtained from various funding bodies including: Community Ownership Fund, Severn Trent, Community Fund, Veolia Environmental Trust, Landfill Communities Fund, Coventry City Council, n-power Business Solutions, Garfield Weston Foundation, The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust, Edward Cadbury Charitable Trust, Charities Aid Foundation, Earlsdon Festival Committee and the support of many local residents and park users.

Creating a community space and café –
The refurbishment June 2025–January 2026

The Friends of Spencer Park are pleased to report that the work to refurbish and renovate the Edwardian pavilion in the park to create a community space and café is finally underway following a delay of several months. The delay arose due to several factors, including adjusting the work programme to ensure that it could be completed as planned within the existing budget, and an overrun on a previous project experienced by the contractor. The work to date has consisted of what is termed ‘stripping out’ – removing existing walls, ceilings and fittings that will no longer form part of the interior of the building. Additional costs will be incurred to remove asbestos dust found on the premises during this stage of the work. These costs are being met from contingency funds. The mechanical and electrical services engineer has now reported back with details of the work required to ensure that the water and electrical supplies and fittings will meet today’s standards.

Other activities completed prior to stripping out include the preliminary fire safety investigation and report.

Earlier this year the need to upgrade the electrical supply to the pavilion was identified. This is necessary given the higher demands that will be placed on the supply due to building heating requirements and the operation of the kitchen. National Grid will undertake this work, and we are awaiting wayleave consent from the council given that the new supply will run via underground cable from Broadway to the pavilion in the centre of the park.

The current estimated completion date is September 30th. Further updates on progress will be provided on a regular basis.